Snake Survival
by r.b.fanfic
Summary: This is a sequel to Snake Love but an independent story. MAY 98. Harry has vanquished the Dark Lord. But on Snake Island, the descendants of Voldemort and Nagini just awoke, ready to strike and take down the Boy-who-lived once and for all, one way or another. What will Harry do when he'll face snakes as he can't speak their language anymore?


**Snake Survival**

The first time I heard it in my head, that _voice_ , it was the 28th of July, four days before my birthday, almost three months after the end of the war and I thought I was going crazy... again.

Of course I remember the exact date because it couldn't have been otherwise when that voice was HIS voice. Even if I have the tendency to be hit by strange things, there is still a line I draw between strange and just crazy. And that voice crossed the line, big time. It was his voice and yet there was an edge to it, a hissing even HIM with his serpentine manners hadn't had. And he was dead, I knew it. I had killed him and he was in limbo but still... It was him and I got scared. What if something had happened? Something I didn't know about. Something that made him immortal in a way I hadn't thought about? What if?

I tried to stay coherent and keep calm, not to overdue my stress and that weird feeling I had in my guts that something wasn't right but it was tough. In a way, I knew I had to be traumatized. Of course I was going to be after a war. I was supposed to be. And yet... In the three months I had lived, I couldn't have been more alive. I couldn't have been better and I felt guilty because of it. Around me, people weren't good. They were pretty awful, crying for their lost ones. My friends were mourning their dead. But me, I wasn't. I couldn't anymore. I had no tears left in my body. I had never been a boy who showed easily his feelings but it was worse as I was becoming a man.

In a way, I couldn't because I wasn't really feeling what my friends were feeling. I was actually bursting with energy and I was missing the run, the chase. Of course, maybe it should have been my first clue that I wasn't so well after all. I missed the adrenaline. Everything seemed so quiet around me, I hated it. And when it wasn't, when I was surrounded by the fuzz of the journalists who all wanted a piece of me, it was worse. Because it was noisy but not with the kind of noises I wanted.

The night after the Battle of Hogwarts, when I had gone to bed, I really thought it was the end of my peculiar life and that I wanted it to be, that I didn't want any adventure. I had had enough. I was so wrong. I missed it and maybe I would have done stupid things just to get the thrill.

But then there was the voice in my head.

I knew it was in my head because the third times, I heard it in front of my friends and it was obvious they didn't hear it. It reminded me of my second year at Hogwarts when I had heard the voice of the basilisk. Two things were different though. First, I knew it wasn't the voice of a snake. I had lost the abilities of a Parselmouth at the moment the piece of Voldemort's soul had left my body. Second, I couldn't talk about that specific issue with my friends. Same way I hadn't burden them with my influx of energy and my need to go in the field to do something, just do something. I couldn't tell them about that mystery - even if I was still mostly certain I was just going crazy - when they had their fair share of real trouble to handle. Besides, there was a weird part of me that wanted to keep it for myself. It was weird for me to want to be alone when I'd craved for company my whole life but it was the way it was. And so I let my curiosity get the best out of me.

It was only after a couple of days flied that I realize I could have talked about it with Ginny, the person who was supposed to be my girlfriend and the simple fact that I hadn't considered her spoke volume. As Ron and Hermione, she was dealing with the death of her brother and the others too. And even worse than Hermione and Ron, she had been on the first line of Voldemort's attack during my second year with the Basilisk - her first year. But I knew, deep down, she would have listened to me if I had just made the effort to reach to her. I didn't. Because I didn't want to talk to her.

Things were tensed with Ginny and they had been from the very end of the war. As lots of people around her, around me, she had thought we would fall into each others arms the second I killed my enemy. She thought I would confort her. And maybe, well, I'm pretty sure I had thought those things too at a time, but I didn't anymore. First, because I was too exhausted to feel anything after Voldemort's death. Second, because I was too numb to feel anything at all, especially towards her, after a year of separation, and admittedly a really short relationship. Third, because I hadn't imagined loosing one of her brother and maybe this was selfish of me but I couldn't be strong for her. And finally, the most important thing I couldn't really explain besides the fact that in few months we had grown apart, there was something about her that doesn't felt right anymore. For once, the monster in my chest was gone and that's what scared me the most.

Maybe I was actually happy to hear a voice in my head just to be able to: first, say that I was crazy altogether so me not going after the girl I should love was a normal behavior for a lunatic, and second, not consider myself abnormal on a sentimental level, because I could think of something, let's face it, much more interesting than that. At the time, anyway.

So I didn't tell my friends and I didn't tell Ginny. I kept that secret to myself, something I had always been good at but at the same time, I didn't act on it. I didn't immediately try to do something about it. As I said, I just thought I was going crazy so I let myself doing crazy stuff, even if it was pretty hard not to listen to the Call. That's how I named the voice and the sweet talk it was giving me. The Call because it was calling me to come, to join that entity with a soothing voice - and how could Voldemort's voice be soothing? That was definitely insane - a voice that enthralled me.

But I kept strong and I really tried not to act all Gryffondor-ish, not to run into things without thinking, like a child I wasn't supposed to be anymore. To do so, I did something that was important to me, something that helped me put my mind on anything but myself and my problems, something that, unfortunately tore my friends and I apart even more.

As the trials against the Death Eaters were running along, as I began interested in the fate of those who had fought for the wrong side, I noticed the Malfoys had been held for the very end, as if they were the most dangerous criminals on Earth, as if they wanted them to pay for centuries of crimes they hadn't really committed. As a matter of fact, I knew more than anyone about their crimes and their good actions. I knew they hadn't participated in the Battle of Hogwarts. Narcissa had even helped me, she didn't have the Dark Mark and didn't deserve to go to Azkaban for just being a good wife and a good mother. Lucius, who was branded, who indeed had done awful things and probably deserved to go to jail hadn't fought for Voldemort in the end. He just wanted to survive, like many others.

But, worst of all was Draco, who was still just a child but because of his seventeen years old was judged along with his parents. Yes, Draco wore the Dark Mark but it wasn't by choice. He had done nothing but being a coward and frankly it didn't seem fair to me that an innocent, even an idiot one, should go live with the Dementors.

It wasn't fair and it wasn't me and enough people had suffered from the war. Enough was enough. So I decided to act on it. I went to the Wizengamot to offer a defense for the Malfoys - and even if the results of the trials weren't given that day, I was pretty confident about the success of the Savior of the Wizarding World in his attempt.

Of course, only a few - or maybe no one - understood the reason behind my actions. And the least I can say was that the Weasleys surely didn't. The day after my testimony, I went to the Burrow and things didn't go well... at all.

Even if Molly and Arthur were trying to make an effort, Ginny and Ron were the worst. I really tried to explain to them my way of thinking but I was already too far away from Ginny for her to want to understand. As for Ron, he just said I had betrayed him, betrayed the whole family and that I shouldn't come back except with my apologies and a way to lock the Malfoys definitely. For him, to put them behind bars was the best thing that could happen to the Wizarding world, a civilian act even. Frankly, that disgusted me.

At first, I really wanted to make things right with my friends. We were drifting apart but that didn't mean I didn't love them with all my heart, right. But Ron's stupidity and stubbornness, mixed with my extreme fatigue - a consequence of my lack of sleep - made me lose my mind and I gave Ron a few home truths I should have probably kept to myself. I left the Burrow after that, my magic ready to flow and bring chaos to the world, my relationship with Ginny definitely savaged and Hermione trailing after me.

As I understood later, she wasn't as opposed as the Weasleys regarding my rescue of the Malfoys. Hermione had never been stupid after all. She had spent all her time since the end of the war with the Weasleys and she was completely exhausted. She was Ron's rock but hadn't had anytime for her own grief. It wasn't fair and the fight between Ron and I, the lost of my friendship was what helped her to wake up from her lethargy. She needed a night off. She needed a night away from her boyfriend and his very sad family.

I perfectly understood. Of course, I did. And I was glad she was with me. I needed someone now that my mission to save the Malfoys was almost over. I only had to wait the decision of the Wizengamot now. I didn't have the right to see them or keep a close watch on their defense, which was done.

So I waited and I heard the voice again, even stronger than before, now that my brain was a total void.

Hermione's presence was a blessing even if it complicated things with Ron even more, because he was jealous. He had always been. As soon as we arrived at Grimmauld Place, we received his Patronus stating that he wouldn't forgive Hermione if she chose me over him - again.

Hermione did roll her eyes at that and tried to reassure me. She said he didn't mean it deep down and so she stayed with me until the result of the trial.

It was great for a while but then on our last night, after a comfortable meal and a long chat about our memories of Hogwarts and our expectation for the future, we fell asleep in the living room, on the couch, next to each other. Usually, I slept alone, especially since I had begun to hear the Call. It was a matter of carefulness. And even if I was on my own in Grimmauld, I put silence ward on my bedroom. I had lots of nightmares after all, it was easier to stay alone rather than being wake up by Kreacher. But that night, I didn't use protection and so, everything changed.

It was almost 3 am when Hermione woke me up and I had difficulties to recognize her as she was hovering over me. That scared me even if I didn't remember what I was dreaming about. Hermione was obviously upset, worried. She was so pale. I tried to smile to her but it wasn't doing any good. It made things worse actually.

« _What_ _'_ _s going on, Hermione?_ » I asked her because it was obvious something had happened.

« _You were hissing in your sleep,_ » she whispered very quietly and then, my blood drained from my face.

I could hear my heart beating in my chest. I felt a dread I had never felt crippling my body and my brain. I gaped at Hermione, unable to react.

« _You_ _'_ _re not supposed to hiss, Harry,_ » she said, something I was repeating in my head over and over again. « Y _ou showed us you couldn_ _'_ _t, Harry, remember. What_ _'_ _s going on, exactly?_ »

She wasn't only worried now. It was worse than that. Because she didn't understand and how could she when I had kept secrets from her? But for the love of her, I couldn't come clean. Not now, not ever.

« _Voldemort is definitely dead_ , » I told her nonetheless. « _And I can_ _'_ _t speak Parseltongue when I_ _'_ _m awake, you_ _'_ _re right. But I supposed that my subconscience still can._ »

I had no idea of that. Actually, hissing in my sleep when I knew there was a voice in my head, his voice, which was calling me, scared the hell out of me. But I wasn't ready to do something about that. I wasn't ready to involve my best friend, and what she told me next confirmed my certitude in the worst way.

« _This is serious, Harry. It could mean something important. You should see someone. Professor McGonagall at the very least. And a Healer. It_ _'_ _s time you see a mind Healer anyway. I_ _'_ _ve been telling you for months now..._ »

This was Hermione's new whim... to make me - all of us, in fact - talk about our experience of the war and I was positively against it. With all my heart and soul. Maybe it was the main reason behind my secret with regard to Hermione. She had the shoulders to bear my problems but she had a tendency to overdo everything, especially her worry.

« _Go back to sleep, Hermione,_ » I asked her gently, perfectly knowing she wasn't going to and that I wasn't either.

« _Don_ _'_ _t withdraw into yourself, Harry, please_ , » she begged me, her hand coming to mine. « _You_ _'_ _ve done that since the end of the war and I can_ _'_ _t bear it anymore. This is unhealthy. I_ _'_ _m your best friend, I can see you_ _'_ _re not feeling right, you_ _'_ _re not telling me everything. Please, let me help you_. »

« _Hermione_ , » I stated in a cold voice. « _Stop. Now_. »

And my magic raised, scaring us both.

« _Maybe you should go back to the Burrow,_ » I told her and she flinched because of my tone.

I didn't recognize myself but I knew I was making the good choice, even if it was on a whim. I knew what I had to do, now. It was evident even if it was coming from nowhere.

Because of my determination, Hermione obeyed me. She left me alone, packed her stuff and went to the Burrow in the middle of the night.

I didn't really care. I was alone and I needed to leave too. At the instant.

I didn't know where I was going, just that I was following the Call.

It was too easy, far too easy, just to let go and follow. I was doing the right thing, I was certain of that. Either I was crazy and this trip was going to cure my craziness or make me die - a thought almost comforting. Either I wasn't crazy after all and there was a mystery that needed to be solved. And I would solve it.

Yes, this was the right thing to do. I needed to convince myself of that because otherwise, I was going to remember what Dumbledore had once told me, about all kind of magic that made you do things you didn't understand. I certainly didn't want to think about Dumbledore and maybe it was a mistake, but I was willing to do it and live with it.

Without much of a package, almost amused by the fact we were the 31st of August, always a day of change in my life, I left Grimmauld ignoring I would never see it again.

...

Eighty-eight days after Mother laid us in the ground, and Father put a protective spell around us, our hatching began. I was the first one to breach my egg and so I became the heir to our parents' inheritance. I was the big brother, the one responsible of my family. Most importantly, I was the first one to hear the voice of Father, whispering his call in my head.

The message was simple, I was born to keep it to heart and in the hours of the hatching, as my fifty brothers and sisters awoke, I heard it, we heard it, again and again, ready to make our order comes true.

We were going to call the boy.

We were going to fulfill our destiny.

We were going to take revenge on our parents.

And with delight, _I_ was going to tear apart the Survivor.

This was my only purpose in life and if I was going to die doing so, I didn't mind because my only wish was to make Harry Potter suffer, to make him pay. Not only had he kill our Father but he had prevented us to have the family we deserved. He couldn't get away with it.

And so we began to call him.

Because we needed him on our island to fulfill our mission.

If I had been an adult, if we had all been, maybe we could have left the Island to find him. But this wasn't a possibility. We were still young and we were left with nothing. No food. No protection of a mother. We were weak and life on Snake Island, despite its name, wasn't an easy one for us.

We were weak, we needed to survive but the craving of Harry Potter's blood was more important than our survival. It was unbearable because for weeks, we began to call him and receive no answer.

As the first born, I was also the strongest and so I put all my strength to help my family survive. I refuse the Call for as long as I could, just to find the needed nourishment for my clan. It was hard, more than that really.

Think about a need stronger than breathing, a need that prevails over every other need, that overcome everything... a need you can't manage to fulfill, a need that prevents you to live. We had this need. I had it but at the same time, I still had the responsibility to make my family survive. I had a choice to make. Listen to the Call or do everything in my power to fulfill it when the time would come. And even if it broke my heart not to obey Father instantly, I chose the second one. It was hard but I manage to hold because of the certainty Father would have agreed with me. Mother was the one who had put in me the need to protect, the way she had protected us, her brood but Father was the one who had put in us human feelings... He would have understood.

Because, yes, our parents hadn't left us completely powerless. They had given us special abilities. Even if there was no human around Snake Island, I knew I was able to understand them, to feel like them. I possessed in my mind the knowledge of humanity. I wasn't a human in the body of a snake, nor a snake in the body of a human. I was both. I was an anomaly as much as unique.

But that anomaly helped me survived on the Island full of snakes.

In a jungle where only one special kind of animal live, a kind both cruel and cunning, only the strongest, the meanest, the cleverest survive.

We were young. We were weak. So we were prey.

And we would have been eaten by the king of the island and his court, if it wasn't for our gift. Not the Call. This special talent couldn't help us except with Harry Potter.

The ability to make people - and snakes - do what we wanted, to compel them to our wish, became really helpful. My desire wasn't to take up the sovereignty of the Island. I just needed my family to survive, until the enemy of my parents finally arrived, until we could kill him. Then, I would do whatever my ability could make me do.

So I didn't compel the king of the snakes to give me his position. I just order him to leave us alone. He gave me the south of the Island and commanded his kinship not to go there anymore. It was perfectly fine by me.

Time passed.

We grew up.

Food was easier to find.

Our survival became life.

And day after day, hour after hour, minute after minute, second after second, the need to fulfill our mission became stronger, unbearable.

We were calling and calling but the boy was strong-minded. He refused to answer. I had never seen a will like that. I had never heard of a will like that. Worse, my data bank of humanity didn't possess an occurence of such a will, a determination, a resolution.

In spite of myself, I was impressed and ... ready to give up. Yes, I shamefully admit it, I hadn't met Harry Potter yet, but I was ready to surrender to him, to his mental strength. Father would have been so unhappy with me.

I hated myself for it.

But then, here it was.

The odor.

The first thing I felt of him was it. His odor. I didn't know it yet but it was already in my mind. I would have recognized him everywhere.

His odor.

The smell of his blood.

My brothers and sisters began hissing, and idiotically, I had the urge to clap the hands I didn't possess.

Harry Potter was there.

...

When I saw Snake Island for the first time, I was on my broomstick with the wind in my hair. From afar, with the sun shining both on the sea and - as I would understand later on - the scales of the snakes, it was magnificent. I would have been compelled to land just because of its beauty, its ethereal atmosphere. But I didn't need that. It could have been a desolated land, I would have come closer anyway, like Icarus with the sun.

Because of the Call.

I had known where to go, instinctively from Grimmauld, just following the voice I had thought it was powerful then but it was much worse now, as I was so close.

The Call was going deep in my head, crumbling my thought, deep under my skin, making me tremble, deep in my bones, breaking them, deep in my flesh, shaking me, deep in my blood, chilling me.

And so I came closer to distinguish an awful sight.

Like the rotten insides of a perfect fruit, Snake Island was disgusting at close quarter.

There were so many snakes on the island you couldn't make out the color of the ground. Of course, I could see the nature, the trees, the bushes, but it was barely there.

On the land that was clearly well called, snakes had proliferated, multiplied.

No human could live there, could even land there, that was perfectly clear.

If that sight wasn't awful enough, there was something else that completely froze me from the insides. A sound even worse than the Call. A noise that would give you a headache even on a perfect day : the hissing of thousands of snakes, awakened by the smell of human flesh. _Mine_.

Once again, I realized I must have been crazy. What was I doing here, on an Island so dangerous it could kill me without me trying? Unfortunately, it was no longer the time to think about it. I had never been able to turn my back on a challenge. I wasn't going to do it now. Especially when my need to move closer became stronger and stronger.

The Call wasn't coming from the whole Island. It was making me go south. So I did exactly that. What I found there was a piece of land, strangely almost void with snakes. Yes, there was a group of them - not much more that fifty. There weren't sprawled on the earth. They looked like a community, a family, all from the same specie.

I didn't know a lot about snakes. Apart from the one I had freed at the zoo when I was young and the Basilisk, I knew Nagini but it was all. Of course, these ones looked like Voldemort's pets by all appearances. I was uncomfortable and yet, I kept flying until I landed a few meters of them. I wasn't disgusted the way I had been with the other snakes. I wasn't even afraid. I was just enthralled and so I let my broom fall to the ground to start walking, my wand at my side - as a protection not really needed.

I walked inevitably with no control over my body as if I was walking to my death... again. With my heart pounding, and my skin sweating profusely. Without fear, only determination.

After all, I had been right. There was a mystery behind the Call. I was still crazy to fall into its - _their_ \- trap, I wasn't that stupid either.

A thought that comforted me, for a while, until one of the snake began to move towards me.

I hadn't really noticed before, I hadn't focused on that detail but the snakes seemed young, much younger than Nagini had been at any rate, and much smaller too. But their skin was exactly the same.

As for their eyes, I couldn't see them. They were closed and with the way they were hissing, it was like they were enjoying a delicate meal. A delicate mouse. _Me_.

The snake who came to me was the only one who showed me its eyes and at the instant I came face to face with those eyes, I completely froze.

They were _His_ eyes. _HIM_. _Voldemort_.

The urge to puke became overwhelming. I wasn't feeling right. I wanted to flee. But it was too late, impossible when I was so bewitched.

The snake was staring at me and for a stupid second, he reminded me of Kaa in the Jungle Book. I almost thought he was going to sing to hypnotize me.

He just hissed, which had the same effect. He hissed at me, as if he was trying to communicate, his eyes fierce in mine, but I didn't understand. I had the confirmation I wasn't a Parselmouth anymore and for no reason, the thought saddened me.

But it wasn't a choice. Same way it wasn't my choice to be here. Same way it wasn't my choice to be glued to the ground as the snake undulated towards me, then on my body.

The animal stopped, his face a few centimeters away from mine. If he has been a human, I would have said he was smirking.

But then I heard the Call again.

At least, it was the same voice, but a different call, a different message.

« _I_ _'_ _m gonna make you suffer,_ » loud and clear in my head.

And then his fangs were on my neck and he was biting me.

...

I had been the first one to awake. I was the first one to see the boy, to speak to him, and the only one to bite him, to kill him. It was my right, my privilege, my reason to live.

And so I did it... It was mostly my mistake.

One sip of his blood, just a taste of his flesh, and I was completely lost.

Lost to his savor, lost to his power, lost to his purity. His blood, as his determination, as his mind, was untarnished and it made me hissed with content even if I was still biting him.

Blood slipped from his wound to my skin. I bathed in his blood and I felt extremely powerful, glorified, a god.

But the feeling passed, too soon when my fangs were no longer on his skin.

The plan was simple, it had been anyway. I was going to bite the boy, just enough to give him a painful death - and if his face was anything to go by, that part was working - and then I was going to tear his flesh in fifty pieces, enough to feed my entire family.

It was a sumptuous plan, a plan that would have made Father proud. Unfortunately, I wasn't going to stick to it. I couldn't.

One drop of Harry Potter's blood, and I was addicted. I could have been a vampire, it would have been no different.

A shame.

A disgust.

A compulsion nonetheless.

For a while, I just watched the boy's body losing its life, trying to reign in my temper, to gain back my composure. It wasn't easy. It was impossible. I was intoxicated by his blood. After all, Father had been reborn from his blood. His blood was running into my own veins. He was kind of family. He was impossible to end that easily. His blood was his protection.

I'm sure there was an irony in all that.

My first bite had been enough to paralyze him with my venom. Harry Potter was the witness of his pain, his death but his body was as useless as an empty shell. It was amazing.

Especially when the green of his eyes began to lose its brightness. His eyes which were turned towards his wand. A wand he hadn't had the time, the desire to use.

If I had it my way, he would never use that wand again.

He was supposed to die. And yet, I couldn't let that happen. I couldn't let his blood, his heady, powerful blood become useless.

At a leisure pace, I came near the boy again. This time, he was no longer on his feet, with his pride as a flag.

He was lying on the floor, the weak state of his body almost shameful. I undulated on his body and I let my weight marked him. I turn my head to the other side of his neck, where I hadn't bitten him yet. I let my tongue away, tasting his smell, his pain but not his fear, as I was expecting. The boy was really strong.

I loved it. He had just a few seconds to live but I took my time. I was having fun. I was enjoying myself. It was the first time of my life.

I licked his neck the way a lover could have licked him. I had no intent of mating with him. I wasn't interested in him that way. I was intrigued, addicted to his blood, maybe already obsessed but that was all.

All.

Like his blood was giving me all. Everything.

And so I bit him, again. I plunged my fangs in his neck, this time giving him the antidote. It was too intense. The boy passed out. If I had been able to smile, I would have. But I couldn't. So I observed Harry Potter. I listened to the beating of his heart. It calmed down after a while, enough to let him regain consciousness. I was still spread on his body and so I felt the shivering of his members. It was invigorating.

Harry Potter snapped his eyes open and looked at me. And then I talked to him, both in a hiss and in his head. I had bitten him not only to kill but also to cure : we had forged a special bond.

« _I don_ _'_ _t want to kill you, Harry Potter but I can promise you an eternity of suffering. You murdered my parents. It will be a delight to see you surrender to the pain._ »

...

The first bite had been agonizingly painful.

I had felt my blood burning and freezing at the same time. I had had the sensation to be stabbed by one hundred daggers. My head had been so painful, I thought my skull was going to crack. It reminded me of the effect of Voldemort's anger and happiness when I still had his Horcrux inside me, when he was still alive.

It was awful. I wanted to cry, to shout, to scream but I couldn't. I was mute to the pain, It wasn't even a decision of my stubbornness. It was a thousand time worse than the Cruciatus.

I wanted to die and I felt like I was going to.

But then I felt a new set of fangs on my skin, or maybe it was the same ones but they were different this time. They didn't carry the same pain or maybe I was already diving in an ocean of pain, I couldn't tell the difference. It didn't seem the same and yet, it felt stronger and so I lost my consciousness to the intensity.

I wake up to the voice in my head. His voice. Not HIS voice. But the voice of the Call, of the snake.

I had the snake's eyes as only field of vision, it should have been awful, especially at such a time, it was just tantalizing.

So I looked at him - it was a him , definitely a him - and I listened.

I listened to things I didn't even understand. Of course, it was in English - well, not in English, but in thought language, I understood these words, not the content.

The snake was talking about the death of his parents. But who were his parents? It could have been Nagini but I didn't know another snake that could have been the _father_. Besides, I had never killed a snake - except for the Basilisk. Neville had killed Nagini. I really didn't understand.

I wanted to tell him that but the only sound my throat was able to make was the gurgle of blood.

But the snake didn't need my voice to understand what was on my mind. As a matter of fact, he seemed to be able to read my thoughts.

And what he was reading - my ignorance - was infuriating him in a way I didn't know was possible. For a human. For a snake. Same difference. Same similarities. Especially for a snake that was definitively not normal - maybe that should have been a clue of his ancestry.

I couldn't focus on that, unfortunately I was too preoccupied by the reaction of the snake, who was hissing something to his family - a command maybe - especially when I was still paralyzed and that I had no way to reach my wand.

What could I have done against all of them, anyway? Nothing.

I was just able to watch and interpret the fifty sounds of hissing I heard. For me, it meant satisfaction.

I should have been scared, surely. But then I was crazy and so I was just excepting the worse.

And it came.

In a way I couldn't have imagined. No one could. There was such a cruelty behind the attitude of the snakes I wondered for a while from who they had taken that. But then I got the answer.

The horror became unbearable. One by one, all the snakes bit me. Between each bite, they gave me the time to almost die but the big brother of the clan always cured me, at the last moment, always him, never another. He gave me the antidote and barely enough time to recover before another one of his brother or sister came forward to have its turn, have a go at me.

It was worse than the worst and yet it wasn't even the worst.

Because, for all that time, in my head, resonated, vibrated two words, two names I wish I could never head again.

« _Voldemort._ »

« _Nagini._ »

« _Voldemort._ »

« _Nagini._ »

They chanted it in my head like a bunch of followers, of worshippers, like the members of a family.

There was no doubt concerning the identity of the parents.

I was disgusted.

I was horrified.

And yet, after fifty bites, after many days of suffering, after the snakes began another round of bite, and another after that and so on, even bestiality seemed soft, normal to me.

Tempting, even.

I could have given them my body, if that's what they wanted. They wanted it but not in that way. In fact, that wasn't even my body they wanted. It was my mind. And that, they couldn't have. I wish they could. But the strength of my mind was stronger than me. I hadn't surrendered to Voldemort. I was not going to surrender to his offsprings.

I wasn't made of that kind of weakness.

To survive, I had one thing to do.

To adapt.

...

I knew he was strong. I had felt it in his mind, in mine. I had felt it on his body, in his blood, which was running under my skin.

But I wasn't expecting him to be _that_ strong. It was impossible. No human could be. Except for Father, no human had been able to adapt to snakes.

And yet, here he was.

It wasn't a choice, like Father, which made him all the more stronger. It was unbelievable. Harry Potter had found a way to bear his fate. Harry Potter had adapted, was adapting.

I was impressed. I was in awe.

My mistake had been to let him live after that first bite. Or maybe it hadn't been a mistake after all.

He was evolving. He was becoming perfect.

Already in awe of his strong personality, his strength, his state of mind, I became fascinated with the changes in his look. I wasn't the only one being in awe. We all were. My family followed me. I followed them. And we couldn't feel otherwise before him.

It was like meeting a God, in person. A snake god.

Because he was becoming a snake.

First, it was a few details in his features. His hair began to fall. His eyes lost their eyelids and took the shape of slits and yet they were still vibrant green. His nose disappeared on his face. His tongue separated in two and became as wonderful as the one of a true snake. Then the details became more important. His legs merged and his arms glued themselves to his torso. Step by step, his body shaped itself to the kind of a snake. He finished on the ground, undulating. Lastly but definitely not the least, two beautiful fangs ripped his mouth of his teeth. And just like that, he became one of us.

He became a snake, unable to speak with his kind. A snake with the voice of a man but no longer human.

We couldn't have been more impressed with his perseverance, his endurance, his determination but more importantly, his power, seen nowhere else before. I came to understand there was a reason behind Father's defeat.

Harry Potter was made of power.

It was magnificent. Magnificent to feel. Magnificent to see, when, days after days, he developed a habituation to our venom. No one could get accustomed to it. It wasn't possible. And yet, once and again, Harry Potter had beat the fate.

Fate loved him.

And because of that, we no longer had a way to defeat him.

Yes, I still had my fangs but he had his own now, and, anyway, I couldn't use mine - or my brothers and sisters couldn't use them either - on him because his blood was too addictive.

He had managed to have us under his thumb.

A thumb he no longer had.

Our plan was doomed. We were doomed...

Except Harry Potter was Harry Potter for a reason.

He was someone who never did what others would - and could - do.

...

After a while, the bites became painless. And then the venom was too. In fact, the venom felt good. I didn't need the antidote. It was just a part of my blood. It was good. I felt wonderful, as I got accustomed to my new features.

Despite what I had always thought of snakes, my eyesight became sharper, I was able to see things I had never seen. I couldn't smell anything in the human sense of the word but it was much better. Because I had a tongue. A tongue that told me everything I needed to know about the air, my surroundings, my enemies, and all the snakes of my kind. Even undulating on the ground wasn't bad. It was pretty amazing to feel every curve of a path with your body. I felt things so differently.

What I preferred, maybe even more than my tongue, was the clan, our unity, the sense of family and the walks we were taking on the island.

I was no longer a prisoner. I had become their friend.

Of course, I didn't possess their special ability but I had forged a special bond with the first born. He was more than my friend. He could talk through me and thanks to him, I was able to communicate with my peers. When it should have been my voice that came out of my mouth, it was his hiss that rang through the Island. A hiss that began to gather every snakes of the place, to tame them, even the king and his court.

I developed my senses. I had a family. I had a purpose in life. I had everything I needed and wanted.

And still, I hadn't lost my humanity. I hadn't lost my consciousness, nor my intelligence.

I knew I was able to defeat the snakes, they had no weapons against me. I had been stronger than them. I had survived.

I could leave if I wanted to. I wasn't compelled to the Call anymore. They were compelled by me now.

I had survived but I had also changed.

Or more importantly, I had found my true purpose in life. I felt right in my body, in my life, for the very first time.

In these conditions, what I had to do couldn't have been clearer.

I knew, because of the uselessness of the venom, I was going to become human again. It was inevitable.

But I didn't want that.

So I went to the beach I had landed the first time I arrived on the Island.

On the sand still laid my wand. I didn't even have to think to know what to do.

I swallowed my wand, centimeters by centimeters, chanting in my head a spell to conserve all my magic inside the body of the snake. _Me_. _The new me_.

I felt good.

I felt complete.

I felt free.

I felt unique.

I was no longer a survivor.

I was just me.

 _Harry_. A _snake_.

...

There was a time I thought I needed to fulfill my mission to survive, and in a way, I did. The boy had suffered. He had lost everything. And yet, as the hero he was, he couldn't not win. Because he was too powerful. Because he was Harry Potter. Because he had given us his trust and so we had - I had - raised him as the Master, the King of the Island.

I hadn't lost. I had won. Everything. All.

...

There was a time I thought I needed my friends, a wife and children to be happy. There was a time when everything was complicated. Now I had a real family. I was happy. One thing was missing. I needed a mate - not a snake but a man, that much was clear - and a legacy.

...

Far away from the Island, in the previous land of Harry Potter, a blond boy was answering to another kind of Call, another kind of need.

Eager to thank the Survivor, Draco Malfoy was ready to do all it takes to find the man, even coming to an Island, unsuitable to human life.

...

 **Sequel : Snake Legacy.**


End file.
